Emergency Alert System (EAS) and National Weather Service (NWS) messages are a common sight in television programming. A content provider, such as a local television station, receives an emergency alert, often associated with adverse weather conditions, from a government agency, such as the NWS. The emergency alert is then presented in the broadcast programming by the local television station. For example, the television programming may be resized such that the weather alert is presented in a bottom portion of the screen in association with the television program, warning the user of an adverse weather condition, such as a tornado, approaching the area. In other embodiments, the emergency alert may be audible only, with the television programming being interrupted by a textual message displayed on screen while the audible information is presented in association therewith.
One problem with the presently implemented EAS system is the targeting of geographically relevant weather alert messages across a wide broadcast area, such as a national broadcast offered by a satellite television provider. Most weather alerts are only relevant to a relatively small geographic area, such as a state, county or city and not the entire broadcast footprint of a satellite television provider. The localized channels broadcast by a provider within a large footprint will most likely already carry an applicable local weather alert based on the inclusion of the EAS message by the local television station.
However, most national channels are broadcast into many different designated market areas (DMAs) of which the weather alert is most likely not applicable to the users in the other DMAs. Thus, it becomes a problem for a satellite provider to provide localized weather alerts for national channels. For example, if each weather alert was inserted into each channel on the service, then users could potentially see a large number of weather alerts applicable only to other regions of the country (e.g., a user in California may be presented with a weather alert for Maine). The presentation of these non-localized weather alerts is generally unhelpful to non-affected areas and detracts from the television programming being broadcast. Furthermore, if users are presented with a large number of generally inapplicable weather alerts, then over time, many users will begin to ignore all weather alerts. As users develop a general indifference to all weather alerts, some users may miss important weather alerts targeted towards their area, defeating the purpose of the EAS messages. Thus, it is desirable for techniques that allow for the broadcast of localized weather alerts and other emergency alert information across disparate geographic areas while presenting such localized information to users in the relevant areas.